Sermon Title: "Building Smaller Barns"
Date: August 1, 2010
Minister:  The Rev. Charles Ensley

Lesson:  Luke 12:13-21

I had already selected this Sunday’s sermon theme before I saw the headline in Wednesday’s (7/28/10) Press-Telegram:  “Key to a long life?  Make more money.”  Isn’t this completely antithetical to Jesus’ parable today?  The headline suggests that the more money you make, the richer you are; the bigger the barns you build to store all your wealth and possessions, the longer you will live.  Did that work for the rich but foolish farmer in today’s parable?

Actually, the newspaper headline is only partially true.  More money alone will not guarantee you a longer life.  But it does give you the ability to receive better medical care and have access to healthier food.  The article reports that in Los Angeles County, the longest life expectancy cited is in La Cañada-Flintridge at 87.8 years.  The shortest is in Westmont, an unincorporated area east of Inglewood where the average life expectancy is 72.4 years.  That’s a 15½ year difference between those living in a wealthy enclave versus those in a modest suburb.

In a country where enormous wealth and persistent poverty stand side-by-side—La Cañada and Inglewood are but a dozen miles apart as the crow flies—how can we help our members wrestle with the question of wealth and material goods in relation to their spiritual welfare?  How does today’s parable from the Gospel of Luke speak to the subject of financial wellness, and how does that relate to our relationship with God?  Why are we so often uncomfortable when talking about money in the church?  How has that discomfort, and even fear, contributed to the economic downfall currently being experienced by our nation (and the world), including people known to many of us?

This morning, Jesus is approached by “someone in the crowd” who is obviously embroiled in a family feud over an inheritance and needs a religious authority like Jesus to make a judgment against his brother.  One of the attorneys in our congregation told me he has been pulled into a few of those conflicts, and it is difficult to believe the parties are even related.  Jesus has been encouraging his followers to be fearless and faithful in preaching the Kingdom of God, and along comes this man with a problem that sounds petty, if not selfish, in comparison.  We might even say today that the man was whining.  Jesus, rather than giving the kind of judgment provided by religious texts like the Book of Deuteronomy, gives the man–and the crowd–a warning:  “Beware!  Watch out!  Be on guard against greed!  For one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.”  It sounds as if Jesus knows just how seductive material possessions are, even in his own lack of possessions.  Jesus warns us about the way “things” can take over our lives, even become our lives, if we do not “watch out.”

Have you ever fantasized about receiving a windfall of money—winning the lottery, or inheriting a sizeable bequest from a wealthy relative—and how it would make you feel relieved and secure at last?  Do you think you would be free of worries?  Isn’t that what happened to the rich farmer in today’s parable?  True, he started out with advantages in his society, where a tiny percentage of folks actually owned land.  On top of that, his harvest that year was staggering and he had to tear down his barns and build new ones to hold it!  The rich fool, alas, thought only of himself.  From the telling, that’s all he had anyway, and he even had to carry on his “financial planning” all alone.  He seems to be completely turned in on himself and his own future, however lonely it might be.  How, indeed, might it be “merry” if he had bigger and fuller barns?

It always helps to read our passage in its context, and we do find much more than the parable in this section of Luke both Susie and I have been preaching from this summer.  In fact, Jesus is addressing the question of value, of our value, and he tells us that we are precious in God’s sight, so we shouldn't worry about “stuff” or believe that a storehouse of treasures constitutes real wealth.  The phrase “rich toward God” is intriguing.  In his translation, Eugene Peterson tells us what “rich toward God” is not:  “That’s what happens when you fill your barn with Self and not with God.”  (The Message)

The rich fool doesn’t seem like an evil man who has cheated and stolen his wealth.  Like all of us, he’s benefited from good luck, from the rain that “falls on good and evil alike.”  The trap he falls into is in his next steps:  when he has a windfall, he doesn’t run into the village celebrating and announcing his plan to share his good fortune with the community, let alone get their help with deciding how to deal with this excellent problem.  He turns inward and stays there, figuring that he can be self-sufficient and secure solely because of his wealth.  Eleven times he uses the first-person “I” and “my” and never “our” or “their.”  Several commentaries point out the irony that the community will likely inherit his bounty since he was more consumed with gathering and keeping instead of making a plan for his wealth’s distribution upon his death, which, in this parable, came immediately upon the completion of the bigger barns construction project.  Distributed to the community, they would probably think well of him!

It’s not uncommon to think that Jesus is just down on material things and wealth.  But it’s much deeper than that:  he knows the seductive power of possessions, and he wants to clear the way for us to receive much greater blessings and joy.  The man’s anxiety about the inadequacy of his barns mirrors in some ways our own preoccupation with handling our possessions, protecting them with security systems, investing them safely, watching the NASDAQ daily, worrying about the closing price.  It’s not that such things are irresponsible or wrong, but they do distract us from what is really important.  Again, Eugene Peterson’s translation of the passage following this story, when Jesus speaks of our hearts and our treasure, is enlightening:  “What I’m trying to do here is get you to relax, not be so preoccupied with getting so you can respond to God’s giving....Steep yourself in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions.” (The Message)  As beloved children of God, we have a Parent who wants to give us good things, if we can just make room in our lives for them!

I would like to contrast the rich and foolish farmer with a long-time church member named Alice Titus.  Alice was an elderly little white-haired widow, a retired librarian.  Alice may have had modest means, but she liked to play the market.  I remember calling on her at her Roycroft Avenue duplex one afternoon about twenty years ago when, during our visit, Alice rose to answer the phone.  She listened intently to what was being said to her on the other end, then gave a one-word command before she hung up:  “Sell.”  She called her own shots.  

Alice worked from a principal of $400,000.  When it increased to a certain level—$450,000 back in the days of higher interest rates—she would sell off the earnings and distribute checks to her two favorite charities:  Long Beach Community Hospital and Bay Shore Church.  About once a year, maybe twice in some years, Alice would come in, ask to see me, then sit down in my office and ask what was needed around the church.  She then pulled out of her purse the check she had already made out and said, “Here, use this.”

Alice died in 1992 at the age of 88.  We received notice from her attorney that her estate was to be equally divided four ways between the hospital, the church and her two nephews.  Alice’s will stipulated that the church’s share was to be invested for a period of ten years, and “that all income produced by the investment was to be distributed not less than annually to the church’s operating budget and to no other budget.”  After such period, it was left to the church’s “Board of Stewards to make such use of the legacy remaining as they may, in their sole discretion, determine.”  (These are Alice’s words.)

Alice’s bequest to the church in 1992 totaled $115,560.  Each year since then, the church has followed Alice’s instructions and placed the earnings into the church’s general operating budget.  Alice was acutely aware of the need for funds to support the building, utilities and staff.  More than a dozen years after we first received the bequest, the Board decided to add a certain portion of the principal each year to the budget.  In our latest investment report at the end of June 2010, we still have $103,943 invested.  That’s after nearly 18 years of payouts to the church budget. 

Instead of letting all her earnings accumulate, stockpiling them away in bigger barns, Alice enjoyed distributing portions of them during her lifetime and seeing exactly how they were used, both by the hospital to buy equipment and by her church.  She built a smaller barn.  She gave her earnings away.  And 18 years after her death, this church still receives each year from that bequest a sum—probably larger than Alice’s annual pledge—that continues to allow us to keep our doors open and serve the community, as Alice wished.

The comfortable lifestyle that most of us are blest to live can lead us away from being “rich toward God.”  But the message of Jesus is that we are blessed to be a blessing.  Leave the bigger barns to the rich fools of the parables and commit to being better at sharing than at storing.  The problem with greed and accumulation is that rich fools—then and now—forget that blessings are intended to be used to bless others.